Baylor

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Last road trip before our home opener next weekend vs. Creighton.

As if the warm weather teams didn't have enough advantages already: Baylor starts the season with a 17-game homestand.

Michael Heesch is slated to start the middle game of the series. Looks like he'll be a permanent member of the rotation now. He's our best pitcher, by far. I just hope we don't burn the kid out. In last week's complete game victory against Western Kentucky, Heesch threw 121 pitches. I know that Coach Dee doesn't have anybody in the bullpen that he can depend on, but we don't want a potential Kerry Wood / Mark Pryor situation to be developing with sore arms due to overuse.

Baylor is only 8-6 so far this year, so maybe we can steal a win in the series. I believe the game will be streamed live on TV on the Baylor network.

Go Flames!!!

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That was one disappointing weekend. Holy crap! Baylor is certainly not a world beater and our Flames got it handed to them. The two glaring flaws of the team are pitching and defense. Unfortunately, those are probably the most important aspects of the game.

One reason for optimism, Dee is definitely the right guy to fix our pitching woes. He is definitely a pitching expert but he has to be scratching his head at this point in the season. We seem to only have one reliable pitcher right now, Heesch. He gives a nice, consistent outing every time he toes the rubber. Other than that, it hasn't looked good. This team doesn't have guys like Miramontes and Worthington to fall back on anymore. Just the fact that we are using a converted shortstop in the top three shows how desperate the situation has become.

The defense is the real problem though. I would have to say this team is averaging close to three errors per game. That is terrible. That also isn't an easy fix. You can't just turn a guy into a good fielder over night. The errors also hurt the pitching staff. We are essentially giving the opponents an extra inning per game to pour it on.

The offense, for the most part, seems to be there. This team scores early and keeps the pressure on. We just can't score 8 to 10 runs per game like we are allowing. It shouldn't be expected of any offense to score like that anyways.

Now, all of my comments are based upon either listening to the broadcasts online or watching the games online. Take them with a grain of salt. However, the era's and stats on errors don't lie. There were plenty of situations where errors really hurt the club. Situations where if a play is made the team will get out of the inning with no runs scored but the error opened the flood gates. I will definitely try to make it out to a game this weekend against Creighton and get a better feel for this team. I don't expect my opinion to change much though.

Anyone know what's going on with Orf? It would be nice to have him back playing as well. I know he dh'd today but it would be a real boost to have him back full time again. Hopefully he can be back to catching full time real soon.

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Here are some (pardon the expression) "highlights" of the first 13 games:

- 22 errors resulting in 17 unearned runs.

- Team ERA of 11.96; only one pitcher has an ERA under 9.00; 8 pitchers have ERA's over 10.57.

- Already 2 games have been suspended early due to the "slaughter rule".

- The sad part, except for Western Kentucky, these performances have been against unranked teams--and one of our wins was against those guys--go figure.

Hopefully things will improve once we start playing our (hopefully) equally inept cold-weather teams. If things don't improve pitching-wise, just as I said in Basketball, let the kids play.
Forget Kovacevich and Reigler (seniors) and give the 4 Freshmen pitchers (Begel, Schoolcraft, Suminski, and Weinberg) a chance to develop, something that rookies don't often get a chance to do.

Finally, if I didn't know better, I'd swear that Jimmy Collins was moonlighting as our pitching coach.